About Rationally Speaking

Rationally Speaking is a blog maintained by Prof. Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York. The blog reflects the Enlightenment figure Marquis de Condorcet's idea of what a public intellectual (yes, we know, that's such a bad word) ought to be: someone who devotes himself to "the tracking down of prejudices in the hiding places where priests, the schools, the government, and all long-established institutions had gathered and protected them." You're welcome. Please notice that the contents of this blog can be reprinted under the standard Creative Commons license.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Some thoughts about in-your-face atheism

by Massimo Pigliucci

The recent American Atheist ad campaign, the one that says that religions are scams, is a bad idea, on all fronts. Before explaining why, I have to remind readers that I’ve had a close connection to AA for years. Former AA President Ellen Johnson made me an honorary life member of the organization; the President who succeeded her, Ed Buckner, is a close friend of mine; and I have appeared several times on their TV show, next to current President Dave Silverman. So, I hope I will not get excommunicated as a result of what follows, it would be a shame (though not something unheard of either).

The new ad says: “You KNOW they’re all SCAMS,” and it’s signed “American Atheists — Telling the truth since 1963.” “They” are at least five of the major religious traditions, as is made clear by a set of symbols accompanying the poster. In an interview, Blair Scott, communications director for American Atheists (another person whom I know and respect), explained that the “target is not the Christians, but all the atheists and agnostics still in the closet who are still pretending, still playing the game, still putting up a facade.”

There are three reasons why this is a bad idea. First, the ad is simply making a preposterous claim that cannot possibly be backed up by factual evidence, which means that, technically, it is lying (but see below for another interpretation). Not a good virtue for self-righteous critical thinkers. Second, it is a really bad PR move, even if the target audience is in fact limited to closet atheists and agnostics. Third, it is an even worse PR move when it comes to the public perception of atheists considered more broadly.

Beginning from the top of the list, a scam is defined as a dishonest scheme, an intentional fraud. Now, it is certainly the case that some religious leaders have made knowingly fraudulent claims to their followers in order to either make money or otherwise unethically gain access to power or sexual favors. But to imply that all or even most religious leaders (and communities) knowingly do this is an extraordinary claim which simply does not even begin to be backed up by the necessary extraordinary evidence. And when one makes a claim that is not substantiated by facts one is either lying (if the statement is made while being aware of the lack of necessary evidence) or is deluded. Either way, AA ought to know better.

Then again, in my dealings with the skeptic, humanist and atheists communities over the years I have noticed a peculiar lack of critical thinking among some atheists. Atheists are not necessarily skeptics (and vice versa), though they typically pride themselves in being smarter and more honest than religious people. The statistics may back up the honesty claim to some extent (proportionately far more Christians than atheists inhabit American prisons), but sometimes I wonder about superior smarts or critical thinking abilities. Yes, we atheists know that there is no god (not as an absolute epistemic certainty, of course, but in the same way in which we know that there are no unicorns — lack of evidence and reason in favor of the positive claim). We can even recite the basic reasons why we don’t think there are gods, which according to philosophers since Plato, means we really have knowledge of this (knowledge being justified true belief).

Yet, several atheists I have encountered have no problem endorsing all sorts of woo-woo stuff, from quasi-new age creeds to “alternative” medicine, to fantapolitics. This is partly because many of them seem to be ignorant of the epistemic limits of science (in which they have almost unbounded faith) and reason (ditto). At the very least it seems that we ought to treat factual evidence with due respect, and claiming that religions are scams flies in the face of the available factual evidence. Hence, it is a bad idea that damages our reputation as an evidence-oriented community.

The second reason why the AA ad is not likely to do much good is because it probably fails at its own core mission, reaching out to “closeted” agnostics and atheists. I wager that most reasonable people who do not believe in gods will look at that sort of ad and react just like Groucho Marx famously did: “I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.” I certainly wouldn’t want to join that club, except for the fact that I’m already a life member of it. The reason most closeted atheists might not like the ad is twofold, of course: on the one hand, it is factually wrong (see above), and therefore does not inspire trust in the organization that sponsored it. On the other hand, it is unnecessarily rude, which brings me to another important sore point within the atheist community: anger.

I get it, a lot of atheists are recovering from religious indoctrination, often of the harshest fundamentalist kind, and they are therefore angry about all the time they have wasted and all the emotional suffering they have endured. I went through my own short anger phase in atheism after I moved to Tennessee (where religion was as in your face as it could possibly get, the place priding itself in being the buckle of the Bible Belt). Anger is good as a transitory psychological state, because it gives us the energy to reexamine broad aspects of our lives, laying the ground for a more thoughtful future self. But if it stays in our system it quickly becomes both corrosive at the personal level and undermines our overall goals as a community.

American Atheists has a history in this respect, going back to the controversial figure of its founder, Madalyn Murray O’Hare. She brought us the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision that made unconstitutional the practice of forcing our children to recite a prayer in public school, and the nation should always be grateful to her for that. But she was also, by all accounts (I never met her) a pretty abrasive woman who instilled something of a personality cult at AA.

It doesn’t have to be that way. My friend Herb Silverman (no relation to Dave, as far as I know), president of the Secular Coalition for America, prides himself in organizing regular breakfast meetings with religious people in his community in Charleston, NC, and while I assure you that Herb doesn’t mince words when it comes to explaining to people what he thinks, he often wears a “Your Friendly Atheist Neighbor” t-shirt, which manages to shock and endear at the same time. Our own Reasonable New York coalition, in its previous incarnation, sponsored a very successful ad campaign in the Big Apple, featuring the motto “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?” The ad was both friendly and factually correct (we got the number from national figures on the percentage of non religious people in the US, and if anything we probably underestimated the number for New York, notoriously ripe with infidels). We were not saying that one is an awful person if one believes in gods, we were simply pointing out that plenty of good people don’t believe, thus indirectly undermining the most recurrent argument for why religion is a positive force in society (the alleged link with morality).

Lastly, Blair Scott said that the targets of the AA campaign did not include religious people. But why not? How is the secular community going to grow if we do not strive to make secularism a mainstream position? And how are we going to do that if we keep talking just to ourselves? Granted, no ad is going to change the mind of the religious fundamentalist, but there are plenty of somewhat religious people out there who might be interested in a positive message, and are sure as hell going to be turned off by a (factually inaccurate) negative one.

Sometimes it seems like atheists could benefit from learning a bit of elementary psychology, or ask a professional ad agency to help them “brand” themselves to the general public. Yes, the AA ad did generate publicity, including an appearance by David Silverman on the O’Reilly show. But did you watch it? It was hard not to cringe a few seconds into it, and you know you are in trouble when even Stephen Colbert points out that it is not good PR strategy for the atheist in the room to look uncannily like the Devil. Of course Colbert also mercilessly made fun of O’Reilly’s idiotic “arguments” for the existence of God — but that’s my point: Colbert elicited laughs and possibly some serious thinking, neither of which will be forthcoming as a result of the AA ad.

By the way, before anyone misunderstands me, I’m not advocating any sort of wishy-washy position about the existence of god. Let’s not throw around silly accusations of “intellectual dishonesty” or “accommodationism.” All I’m saying is that both the accuracy of the message and the way it is presented matter, at least if you wish to build a better society, which I assume is what we are all trying to do. If the goal is simply to feel superior by pissing people off, I’m not interested.

[Dave Silverman, the President of American Atheists, has graciously accepted my invitation to write a guest commentary in response to this post, it will appear soon.]

57 comments:

Isn't that a bit of a logic fail, Professor? Your opening statement "the ad is simply making a preposterous claim that cannot possibly be backed up by factual evidence, which means that, technically, it is lying" applies equally to religion, does it not? Religion has no factual evidence for their extraordinary claims. If someone lies to you, and part of the lie includes coercing money (tithing) from you, it's a scam. Am I missing something here?

I think that the American Atheists (I am not affiliated with them) make a good point with the sign.

T-Dog, I simply love it when readers of this blog quickly accuse me of failings in logic, including committing logical fallacies of all sorts. No, there is a difference here: American Atheists *knows* that there is no evidence for their claim, while most religious people and leaders believe in good faith. Of course, they are both factually wrong, but for different reasons.

Great post. The only thing it doesn't seem to cover is that the ad looks like it was made in a rushed panic using MS Paint the night before it went out. That may be an ad hominem, but I'm only human.

This sort of attitude has actually driven me (and others, I'm sure) away from labeling myself an atheist and just telling people that I'm agnostic. I suppose both apply, as I see no convincing evidence for the existence of a god, but science cannot prove a negative so the possibility cannot be ruled out.

It's a shame that it's happening to the face of atheism, and it's more of a shame that there's been some overlap from some atheists in the skeptical community. The Skeptic's Dictionary facebook page comes to mind: at times promoting purely atheist articles/subjects that have no value in terms of skepticism or critical thinking.

I just wanted to thank you for an excellent article, which made for interesting discussion with my wife, and which has given me (and hopefully many others) food for thought. We atheists can be staunch in our positions without being nasty about it, and I believe we'll get much further that way.

While I agree with you that the sign is making an unsupportable claim (and doing it with the same abuse of caps lock as many internet cranks), you're also making a claim for which you've presented no evidence. Which atheists show an "almost unbounded faith" in science and reason? And how does this unbounded faith lead, as you seem to claim, to holding pseudo-scientific beliefs? Some concrete examples of the phenomenon you're describing in that paragraph would be greatly appreciated.

Cameron, good questions, but I was making two separate claims there. On the one hand, a perusal of much of the so-called "New Atheist" literature shows a clear scientistic bent, characterized by a simplistic view of science epistemology.

On the other hand, I have personally met a good number of atheists who hold to new age or alternative medicine type of beliefs. This is a discussion that has been going on for some time within the skeptic and atheist communities, with atheists typically accusing religious skeptics of not practicing sound critical thinking (good point), and skeptics accusing atheists of the same when it comes to new age / alternative medicine (again, good point).

I wish there were quantitative sociological studies to draw upon, but I'm not aware of any. Still, I maintain that expert reading of the literature and ample anecdotal evidence do count as evidence of some type.

I guess you guys are basically right about this one. I do get tired of the whole let's-play-nicey-nicey atheist crowd, but the sign is a distortion of the truth, so it's probably a bad idea to put it up.

Ritchie, yes, though I think there is a difference between "nicey nicey" to the expense of intellectual rigor - which I do not advocate - and gratuitous insults that undermine our long term goals as a community. As usual, hard to steer the middle path, but who said life was easy?

You picked a good time to write this post: I recently reacted in an unfair manner to the tragic occurrences in Arizona before knowing all the facts. In my angry invective, I wrongly included religion as a possible cause or culprit (there is a lot more going on, to be sure). It seems I'm still learning how to avoid seeing what I want to see.

One certainly doesn't necessarily give up one's capacity for making mistakes after giving up one's religion. Many atheists need to bear this in mind.

I certainly agree that playing nicey-nicey is bad if it comes at the expense of intellectual rigor. I would also add, however, that playing nice is not necessitated by the fact of one's being able to do so without sacrificing intellectual rigor. We should remember that a straightforward statement of the truth, like "Christianity is false," can seem like an insult to millions of people, even though it is a simple, baggage-free statement of fact.

@Massimo: Great article; I think it's pretty much spot on, although I was surprised by the mention of atheists supporting new age and alternative medicine - I've seen virtually no evidence of that.

Angry atheism seems to usually present as "worldview atheism;" i.e., its proponents seem to define themselves by their atheism, and little else. If you ask them about ethics, all you'll hear is criticism of religious ethics. If you ask them about science, they preferentially mention science that undermines religion - mere boring uncontroversial science is not on their radar. If you ask them about politics, everything gets framed in terms of faith. To the extent that this is a transitory phase when one leaves one's religion, no biggie. But it seems to last way too long sometimes.

>The statistics may back up the honesty claim to some extent (proportionately far more Christians than atheists inhabit American prisons)...

I think this argument (which one hears often) is misleading. Small numbers of atheists in American prisons are expected, since they are a fairly small minority. You would have to normalize to the relative sizes of the groups to get a meaningful number, which is presumably what you mean by "proportionally." Even then, I expect the stats would favour atheists, but that's still unsurprising, because atheism correlates with education level, which correlates inversely with criminal behaviour. This seems a sufficient explanation for the imbalance, without positing moral superiority (although we totally have it).

@Nathan:>It's a shame that it's happening to the face of atheism, and it's more of a shame that there's been some overlap from some atheists in the skeptical community.

I take you to mean that you wish atheism and skepticism could go their separate ways? I think this would be a giant mistake; the two enterprises are inseparably based on precisely the same epistemic foundations. Skepticism needs to stage a hostile takeover of atheism.

>This sort of attitude has actually driven me (and others, I'm sure) away from labeling myself an atheist and just telling people that I'm agnostic.

There are those of us who label ourselves rationalists or skeptics, and embrace all good epistemology as opposed to merely rejecting one example of the bad. "Agnostic" is objectionable because it implies that merely probabilistic knowledge doesn't count (you shouldn't have to logically PROVE that no gods exist, to reject them - if that were our criterion in every aspect of life, we would be paralyzed), and also because, once again like atheism, it implies that the existence or nonexistence of gods is a good question to organize a whole worldview around. (As opposed to a trivial question that is only important for political/demographic reasons.)

Professor: Thanks for the post. I agree with you wholeheartedly. The ad is a bit crass. It reminds me of Madeline Murray-O'Hare's appearances on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. She always made a few good points, but the value was lost in the anger and rudeness.

I watched the interview with O'Reilly, and you're right, it was cringe-worthy.

"the ad is simply making a preposterous claim that cannot possibly be backed up by factual evidence, which means that, technically, it is lying."

Making a claim that cannot possibly be backed up by factual evidence isn't necessarily lying, technically or otherwise. It could just be error! It could also, or instead, just be bad wording - as this ad is bad wording if the "you" really is supposed to mean closeted atheists. (It's really rather idiotic to write an ad with a "you" in it if you seriously intend the "you" to be only a segment of the population.) Lying requires intention, which is why it's such a reckless claim to make.

Oh, beg pardon, I see you say that yourself a few sentences later. But then you ought to cross out the "lying" claim!

Apart from that, though, I agree with you. Ads have to be carefully worded - duh. Advertising 101. It's not possible to do nuance in 20 words. If you want to address only closeted atheists, a billboard is the wrong place to do it. Etc.

In spite of that second last paragraph I think you're still going to be accused of accommodationism for entering into the fray of The Great Tone Debate(tm).

There seems to be a lot of conflation going on in skeptic circles that simply being polite when talking with the other side* is equivalent to "taking religion off the table". It's like some think that to question religious beliefs one necessarily has to be a jerk about it, that one can't say "I disagree that there is a god" without appending "you idiot" to it.

And then there's the demarcation disagreement even between atheist skeptics as to what claims made by religion are or are not testable via the scientific method, which also falsely gets decried as accommodationism.

*For transparency's sake, I am that "other side", a skeptic who is not an atheist, so I have a horse in this race. :-)

The confrontational tone in American politics is the subject of a good deal of commentary given the horrible event in Arizona. I'm not sure there is a connection with the shootings, as there seems to be no evidence it had an impact, but the concern regarding the generally inflammatory rhetoric seems legitimate. I wonder if we we see something similar at work among "angry atheists" in this instance.

"I take you to mean that you wish atheism and skepticism could go their separate ways? I think this would be a giant mistake; the two enterprises are inseparably based on precisely the same epistemic foundations. Skepticism needs to stage a hostile takeover of atheism."

I don't necessarily mean that they should go their separate ways. I mean it's a bit disappointing to see people who merely wish to insult others as one of the major faces of atheism. And I've seen that attitude spill over into the skeptical community.

I'll use and example from The Skeptic's Dictionary: a few weeks ago an article was posted about a structure being erected that had a dome, somewhere in America (the specific state eludes me at present). Local Christian residents were very outspoken, as they assumed that the structure was going to be a mosque, when it turned out to be another church. The content of the rest of the article was akin to "Haha, look at these stupid Christians and how stupid they are", and had no real relevance in a skeptical discussion. Normally that wouldn't bother me, but the fact that they were plugging a clearly atheist article with barely any substance on a self-defined skeptical and critical thinking website does bother me.

Why? Because if enough of that behaviour occurs, then the skeptical/critical-thinking/rationalist/whatever else movement starts to become associated with that when viewed by the general public, who may be turned off by it. That being said, there are many atheists in the skeptical movement who aren't just interested in insulting people and do a lot of great work.

"There are those of us who label ourselves rationalists or skeptics, and embrace all good epistemology as opposed to merely rejecting one example of the bad. "Agnostic" is objectionable because it implies that merely probabilistic knowledge doesn't count (you shouldn't have to logically PROVE that no gods exist, to reject them - if that were our criterion in every aspect of life, we would be paralyzed), and also because, once again like atheism, it implies that the existence or nonexistence of gods is a good question to organize a whole worldview around. (As opposed to a trivial question that is only important for political/demographic reasons.)"

I really meant that to be taken in terms of social context, as in when asked what my views on the subject of religion/god is. As I said, both 'atheist' and 'agnostic' apply to my view. However, when I say "I'm an atheist", I notice more raised eyebrows and standoffish behaviour, which isn't terribly helpful. I've also gotten the "so you hate god?" follow up question (which is incredibly annoying, and by the time I start to accurately explain my views the topic has shifted and no one cares anymore), and stating that I am agnostic seems to go much more smoothly. Further, ad campaigns like this don't help to make atheism more welcomed in day-to-day social life.

"M" great post, yet again. I think it's a dammed if we do or don't. "They" are mad at us anyway. That being said, when we come out w/a negative campaign, then they'll be that much more angry. I like the 'militant atheist', we need them, esp. since i'm not one. I look up to them because they do what I cannot. Compared to their advertising, ours is relatively calm. Awesomeness.

"I wager that most reasonable people who do not believe in gods will look at that sort of ad and react just like Groucho Marx famously did: “I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.” I certainly wouldn’t want to join that club"

Isn't that "making a ... claim that cannot possibly be backed up by factual evidence, which means that, technically, it is lying."? Also isn't thinking that you know what most other atheists think about this ad "a peculiar lack of critical thinking"?

Bien dicho Massimo. Rational discourse should have a place for rhetoric, even when using somewhat kitschy media like t-shirts, billboards, and bumper stickers. But conflating specious reasoning and hyperbolic language *gets us nowhere*, regardless of milieu.

Having just written a post comparing tone in different movements, one particular thing you said stuck out to me, though I don't think it takes away from your major point.

I think it's funny that in atheism, the thing that always comes up is anger. Few other movements harp on it so much, and I'm not convinced that it's because they're less angry. I think it's because there is an "angry atheist" stereotype, and everything is seen as either a confirmation or disconfirmation of the stereotype. Yes, let's talk about stereotypes, but let's also question the way that it shapes the very structure of our debates.

In the queer movement, there is no "angry queer" stereotype, but there is a stereotype of being flamboyant and over the top. So that's what they talk about instead. Instead of shaking their heads at "angry" ads, many queers shake their heads at over the top pride parades, even if they have to ignore the majority of the parade to do it. Next, everyone is placed on a scale from straight-acting to flaming, and suddenly small mannerisms have become a huge political thing.

Anyways, I think it is a little strange that the very first thing we jump to when looking at that ad is anger, out of all the other dimensions we could consider. And then we start talking about how we ourselves went through a "short anger phase", even though I'm pretty sure that anger in an ad campaign is not really equivalent to anger in an individual.

1. An ad that gets people talking about it is doing what ads are meant to do - not be ignored! (negative press is better than none, as they say)

2. I read the "you know they're all scams" as a statement about what I, the reader, "know" and this is a subjective "knowing" - I certainly don't have evidence that they're all scams, and how I personally define scam might be incorrect, but this struck me as subjectively true, for me. And because the reader's beliefs (not the external reality) are the test of the statement's veracity any reader can quickly assess if the statement is true for them or not and dismiss if not. This prevents the sign from attempting to mislead people as it would if it said only "All religions are scams" - the question isn't if all religions are scams, the question is if you, the reader, feel all religions are scams (or sympathize with thoughts in that general direction).

I apologize for not writing the above with greater eloquence but I think these are important points.

Derek, nice try, but: 1) I never understood why exactly negative publicity is better than no publicity. 2) Atheists shouldn't be in the business of promoting subjective knowledge, that way lies the inferno of postmodernism...

That was a great post! The thing that I appreciate most about it is that it provides a fine example of how both integrity and compassion matter when dealing with people who you want to help. Your position is more than reasonable. It's actually practical.

What is meant by closeted atheists? Is it people who are atheists that stay in the closet out of fear of rejection by loved ones? Or is it people who don't believe in God but don't want to call themselves atheists because of pre-conceived notions?

If it's the former, then I think "tone" is important because if people are self-conscious about coming out already, then being associated with a message that rubs their religious family and friends the wrong way doesn't seem very enticing.

Agreed, this ad appears a tad unwise. While the founders of religions do seem to be more obviously scammers the later in history they were active, simply because we know more of them (think the sequence Abraham/Moses - Buddha - Jesus - Mohammad - Joseph Smith - Ron Hubbard to see what I mean), it is also obvious that many of their high-ranking followers are actually true believers. I would not do something like that.

But what exactly do you mean with this?

Yet, several atheists I have encountered have no problem endorsing all sorts of woo-woo stuff, from quasi-new age creeds to “alternative” medicine, to fantapolitics. This is partly because many of them seem to be ignorant of the epistemic limits of science (in which they have almost unbounded faith) and reason (ditto).

True: atheism is not critical thinking, but simply the disbelief in gods, very specifically. I also understand that the epistemic limits of science are one of your pet issues. I would also certainly agree, even if you probably do not think I do, that it is important to know and respect them. But what the heck does belief in quackery and new age woo or blind adherence to a political ideology have to do with overconfidence in, of all things, science?

Quite the opposite: It is the quack or the woo-master who insists that "orthodox western" science or reason does not know all, even in areas where medical science is in fact the only reliable way to know anything at all, it is the political ideologue who explains scientific results away with insisting that the researchers are in the pockets of the political opponent or a shadowy conspiracy.

If you want to paint the dangers of scientism, why not chose realistic examples - like a proponent of eugenics, or a futurist thinking that all social problems will simply disappear in a poof of quasi-magic once we develop self-improving AI - instead of the exact. diametrical. opposite. of scientism?

A very minor point: Are you sure the Reasonable New York ad campaign you refer to based its number on national figures? Because both the ARIS and Pew surveys had large enough sample sizes to publish numbers for each state as well as for the nation, so it should have been very easy to look up the percentage of nones for the state of NY.

'Fantapolitics?' Is that the politics of one particular brand of soda pop? Now I know you are just making up your own words there.

Nevertheless I mostly agree with your logic except for point number three. Atheists are already the least trusted minority in this country. It seems to me that no campaign is a threat to our position there in last place and any sign indicating there are other non-believers is better than no sign at all leaving the billboards to the irrational.

“target is not the Christians, but all the atheists and agnostics still in the closet who are still pretending, still playing the game, still putting up a facade.” - is it a good idea targeting a state of mind one can only conjecture?

Broadly speaking, I agree with the bulk of this post; I also thought the ad misjudged. I would not choose for my atheism to be represented this way.

That said, two points: * I can't help feeling that an ad reading "you know homeopathy, healing crystals etc are scams" would receive less criticism for being rude and angry. I find the idea that religion is above scrutiny still leaves a thick residue and makes us flinch too much at things that aren't really that rude. * There is a difference between attacking an idea and attacking those who currently support it. It would be a cheap trick for a politician to whip up his/her voters be telling them that his/her critics are really attacking them. Yet atheists that criticise organised religions and religion itself are often criticised for attacking ordinary religious folk.

Kraft, Jersey Shore is negative publicity for what, exactly? A tv show catering to trash isn't really comparable to an ad to advance a serious cause, is it?

Ophelia, as you yourself pointed out, I say that AA is either lying are are deluded. I don't see any reason to change the wording. And they really should have known better, as a self-professed evidence-based organization.

Alex, maybe I wasn't clear in my wording, but I did not connect some atheists' scientism with some other atheists' woo-woo beliefs. Those are two subgroups of atheists I have encountered. The major point being, as you put it, that atheism is no guarantee of critical thinking.

You say:"I wish there were quantitative sociological studies to draw upon, but I'm not aware of any. Still, I maintain that expert reading of the literature and ample anecdotal evidence do count as evidence of some type. "

This is the kind of evidence that I would argue we have against many of the religious leaders themselves. As you point out,"I get it, a lot of atheists are recovering from religious indoctrination..." Now, the majority of religious leaders have gone to university or seminary and have learned that the what lay person is indoctrinated with is false. Those in seminary or similar institutions are given multiple explanations for material of which, the lay person is indoctrinated. With their given knowledge, they keep amongst themselves, and go out and continue to indoctrinate the lay people, even though they know of multiple explanations, and many times do not even believe what that they are indoctrinating people with. In other words, they do not believe the dogma they are espousing.An example would be saying at a funeral that "Poor Aunt Mary is in heaven"--when they know, that according to their beliefs, poor Aunt Mary is asleep in the ground. I have, on several occasions, asked after a funeral, why they said such a thing, when they themselves do not believe this to be the case. Each time, they said they did it because they did not want the family to be upset, even though the clergy knew it was not true.

I have studied at university and seminary, and myself as well as many of the students there are shocked to find that the majority of what we were taught in Sunday School is nothing like what we were taught in seminary. The excuse they use for not telling lay people everything is, as I quote from a bishop I knew "The poor peasants don't need to know too much." Furthermore, this has a precedence, in that they used to keep it in Latin for this very reason....to keep their so-called "knowledge" away from the lay person, as it would "de-indoctrinate" people.

I too am a philosophy and religion professor. I use this technique in my classes. I allow the students to invite any religious leader they wish, or anyone else for that matter to class for discussion. And in almost every case, the students are shocked when the person they invited to class admits that what I am teaching is, in fact, correct--as I teach it as if I were in seminary. Usually the student who invited the guest becomes angry, as for many years this person has "scammed" them through indoctrination, and now their "religious leader" has admitted that he/she is in on the scam, and has scammed the lay person the whole time.

This is why, while they could have come up with a better ad, your point about there not being evidence of a "scam" is dubious, as "I maintain that expert reading of the literature and ample anecdotal evidence do count as evidence of some type" of scam by religious leaders.

Ophelia, yes, I'm better than that, but I'm also generally opposed to changing posts once posted, and I also don't see an elegant way to tweak it. Unless you can suggest one, perhaps we can assume that readers will have noticed your objection and my response and be done with? ;-)

Massimo, oh, I see - I hadn't thought of that. I kind of have the opposite policy - what I do is cross out the bit I need to correct and add the correction right after it. That's inelegant of course, but I prefer it to not correcting at all and to simply deleting the bit I need to correct.

Another way to do it would be to add an asterisk and have that lead to a correction or tweak at the bottom of the post. That's more elegant.

"... a perusal of much of the so-called "New Atheist" literature shows a clear scientistic bent, characterized by a simplistic view of science epistemology."

I think you've said this a number of times now, but I don't think you've given any examples of it. Could you provide a short account of what you mean by 'scientistic' and then some examples of how much of the new atheist literature is characterised by it?

yes, I've seen Jerry's ..., well the only way I can characterize it, unfortunately, is rant. I will not make a separate blog entry about this, but here is what I am about to post as a comment on his blog:

Dear Jerry,

I find it strange that you manage to agree with my fundamental point about the AA board, and yet somehow go on with what from my perspective looks like a long rant covering territory that we have covered ad nauseam before. Funny also that you are so offended by my treatment of "atheists" (as if I were not one), while Ed Buckner, Dave Silverman and the leadership of AA found my post measured and constructive. Several commenters have hailed our exchange as a rare example of positive dialogue in the blogosphere, and even some of your strong supporters, like Ophelia Benson, had words of praise for it. Oh well.

Moreover, I am sad to note that you have already broken the recent truce about personal attacks that I thought we had agreed upon just a few months ago. Unless you think the following appellatives that you hurtled at me are not to be taken personally: "haughty and supercilious," "lack of humility is his own besetting fault," "condescending and invidious." Is this your idea of a civil dialogue? Because if so, you could learn a thing or two from both Ed Buckner and Dave Silverman (his response to my post on AA will be published today).

Oh, and you are really, really, really, angry. I get it. Perhaps that explains your attitude, but too much anger is really not healthy, for the person or for the movement.

I just wanted to say that I totally disagree with the tactic theists use, which is, 'You KNOW blah blah blah'. No, we don't know, and that's why people discuss these issues.

I think the sign would have been FAR better off just reading, 'Religion is a scam'. But saying, 'You KNOW religion is a SCAM' like that is just a little too much for me, and I am one of the most assertive and brash atheists I know. ;) I think you can be brash but not have a logical fallacy built into your statement.

Also, as mentioned by others, you guys really do need to carefully examine your graphic design, your use of fonts and colors and come up with some consistent branding that is used all the time. The 'Southeast Regional Atheist Meet' is way too close to the title and the font is too similar for being that close, and TOO BIG. ;)

I say this not just as an atheist but an artist having spent 20+ years in the video game business. Hire me, hire someone, but definitely work on your presentation. FFRF has some amazing-looking billboards/signs, I think.

Finally, I appreciate the effot that AA is making, and I love Dave's energy. I think he matched Bill O'Reilly's bluster very well and I think he's a good spokesperson.

And yes, religion is a scam, but a lot of people don't know it (but they will). ;)

Several commenters have hailed our exchange as a rare example of positive dialogue in the blogosphere, and even some of your strong supporters, like Ophelia Benson, had words of praise for it.

I didn’t have any words of praise for the exchange. I said I agreed with you about the ad, which is true; I did. I didn’t say any more than that because I didn’t want to wake up any sleeping dogs – but if I had I would have disagreed with much of what you said. I disagree with you about anger. Of course there can be such a thing as too much of it, but I think some anger is necessary and healthy (in literal and figurative senses).

Last, I do not think you have made your point that the new atheism is unacceptably or unreasonably strident. For instance, you speak of Hitchens' book in this way, but while sometimes astringent, Hitchens not only shows a vast familiarity with religion and its practices, he also shows an uncommon respect for it, even as he demolishes it step by step. Dawkins, too, while he is quite strikingly opposed to religion -- with considerable justification, I should have thought -- is nowhere strident or unreasonable, even though one might find some of the philosophy a bit hastily and carelessly done. But, then, he was writing a popular work, and seems to have caught the right note. Perhaps what makes him seem strident is the unprecedented success his book enjoyed. The angriest of the new atheists is clearly Sam Harris, and he is sometimes strident, though always with a kind of cold reasonableness. But his book is a response, quite clearly, to 9/11, and the anger is always in evidence, very controlled, just beneath the surface.

And, as your use of Sagan's Gifford Lectures shows, you fail to notice the different context of speech, and why it might be different in those different contexts. When you consider two quotes from Coyne, one from his blog and one from a book review, you try to suggest that the difference is explainable by remarking that, in the three years between one and the other, Jerry had joined the ranks of the new atheists. But, perhaps the difference is that one is reflective speech for formal publication, and the other is blog speech, speaking to people who can hear the qualifcations in the more forthright expression of opinion. If you follow Jerry's blog you will come across very thoroughly thought through criticisms of theology alongside quite expressions of annoyance and even anger. But do you realise how your own de haut en bas way of speaking to people who do not work with philosophical ideas professionally sound? For all their apparent sweet reasonableness, they sound harsh and strident to me.

I guess my point is that I do not think you make your case against the new atheists very well.

I don't know whether this was actually posted or not; it's the first of two.....

Massimo, thank you for giving me all those references regarding scientism. I don't think that, in all of those posts you really clarify what you mean by 'scientism'. For example, while it is true that religion probably cannot be completely disproved by empirical means, it is not unreasonable to believe that many religious beliefs do have empirical implications, and where those are not fulfilled it seems reasonable to chalk that up as (in however qualified a sense) as an empirical disproof of religion.

For example, Darwin clearly took it as a disproof of the Christian doctrine of creation that life as we know it evolved from primitive beginnings. That Christians have substituted 'theistic evolution' for the original idea of immediate creation, does not diminish the force of Darwin's idea, and, indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that theistic evolution is prone to criticism on other grounds -- for example, on the basis of the increased suffering that is required for billions of years of evolution. But surely claiming, in this sense, that there is a good empirical reason to doubt the truth of Christian claims is not scientistic.

Nowhere do you make it clear what you are objecting to by your term 'scientism', and I think that is important, in order to limit the scope of your criticism.

A second point that I should like to make is that, in claiming a certain philosophical naivete on the part of some of the so called new atheists, and suggesting that they should just stick to science instead, not only are you being very unhelpful, you are in fact as guilty as you think the new atheists are of a kind of hauteur and stridency. It is one thing to point out what you consider to be philosophical errors. It is another thing to do it with the kind of arrogant knowingness of the expert speaking down to the ignorant tyro. By all means suggest where you think people have gone wrong, but why does it seem to you helpful to class a number of people together dismissively as new atheists, and then define them in opprobrious ways?

Another point is the way you characterise accommodationism, by refering to collaboration, and then imply some kind of wartime treason and perfidy. Accommodationism is the attempt made by many religious people to assimilate religion to science, and to suggest, what is surely false, that there are clear resemblances between the rationality used in the one and the rationality used in the other. It is a way of making religion more acceptable by association, and it is, I believe, anyway, fundamentally dishonest. It is one thing to say that many scientists are also religious. It is a completely different thing to say that there is some consistency between the two approaches to "reality", for it is quite clear that there is no way that the religious, whether they are scientific or not, can demonstrate the truth or even the probability of the truth of their beliefs. Religion is not in any clear sense a kind of knowing, or at least it has not been shown to be so, and the endeavour to relate science and religion is trying very hard to hide that fact, and so to insinuate claims that cannot be verified, using the authority of science as a carrier for beliefs that have no relationship to science or to the methods of science.

My two cents. This is an old argument in the Atheist community. Too old.

Massimo, I have great respect for your work and your blog, but I disagree with your assessment of the AA billboard.

The billboard can be considered negative advertising by some folks. I don't consider it negative advertising but so what if it's considered such? Negative advertising works. Of course there are different ways to advertise which have been used by several organizations. None of them have resulted in the advertising value gained by both AA billboards. Prime time national TV on several major news stations. I'd say it was pretty successful.

But I consider both AA billboards positive advertising. Why? Freedom of Speech! Religion is an idea like any other idea. Why then should it be given a special right not to be criticized? Why is calling it a "scam" considered negative? Republicans call Democrats scammers all the time and vice versa. No one is freaking out about that. We never see the Republicans criticizing Republicans for calling Democrats names and the same with the Democrats. There's thousand of ideas criticized all the time. Big deal.

The one thing in this country that keeps religion on high ground is reverence. Too many people are afraid to say anything that may be considered negative because of it.

It's a very similar situation with the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. Of course, no one in the Atheist community will ever likely get violent over the AA billboard, but the criticism of AA is the same as the criticism of Kurt Westergaard because of reverence.

The Atheists and other non-theists who plead with AA to put up a less offensive message most likely don't have a reverence toward theism. But they are somehow afraid of offending those who do have that reverence. What they may not realize is that they are contributing to the reverence of religion by catering to theists who expect reverence toward their theism from everyone. And that is indeed accommodationist because they are giving theists the same special privilege to not be offended that no Atheist gets.

As long as theism has reverence, those having that reverence can never really have any rational discussion about their religion because to one degree or another, they’ll always expect everyone to have reverence for their theism, or at least a degree of undue respect that is not granted to any other ideas. They’ll always expect Atheists or anyone else to keep our mouths shut about theism and just accept it. And they’ll always get offended when we don't.

And it doesn't matter how nice we try to be.

And they have no problem offending us.

And it's reverence for theism that causes government to favor theism over any other idea.

And the main source of discrimination against Atheists.

What could prevent all the violent Muslims from issuing fatwas for depicting the prophet Muhammad? One way is pretty simple. Place pictures of Muhammad everywhere possible so that no one could not see it no matter where they looked. If everyone on the planet who has no reverence for Muhammad put up at least one cartoon depicting Muhammad then Muslims would have no choice but to accept it. Those Muslims cant kill everyone. After awhile, it would become normal and no one would freak out because of it. Muslims would have to accept that non-Muslims don't revere their theism and they would have to learn to get along like everyone else. Kurt Westergaard could walk around without worrying about getting killed. Flood them with free speech.

And that's the same with theism in this country. Flood the country with free speech and reverence for theism will likely cease being a problem. It can become normalized to criticize religion. When theism isn't given so much reverence, Atheists can have a much more level playing field and just maybe, no one will really care if one is an Atheist or a theist. We can all just be humans.

I read David Silverman's response. One of his arguments is the impact of the ad on membership and publicity. The problem that I have with this argument is that it does not consider that other ad (less offensive) could possibly have conveyed the same message and had a similar impact on membership and publicity without all the negativity that might hurt the movement in the long run. I say consult with an ad agency.

While I usually agree with your arguments, I am particularly offended by your mention of atheists who embrace alternative medicine. While I do not practice reiki or some of the other more mystical forms of alternative medicine, I am a practicing herbalist whose practice is based solely on good science. I despise Western medicine and therefore looks to nature to cure all ills. This is a proven method, as there are scientifically sound reasons as to why herbs and natural foods are curative. To dismiss those as mumbo-jumbo akin to religion is reckless and judgmental.